Monday, 21 May 2007

How not to play the Scandanavian Defence

Boris Spassky former Chess World Champion

A few weeks ago I was asked if I would suggest some lines for Black in the Scandanavian Defence following 1 e4 d5; 2 ed Nf6. It's still on the back boiler, but I couldn't resist showing this example I discovered of "how not to play the Scandanavian Defence".

The game was played at the Havana Olympiad in 1966 in the match between the USSR and Monaco. The first round of the Olympiad can throw up some terrible mis-matches, as witnessed in this encounter between future World Champion Boris Spassky and Mr Weiss from Monaco:

Boris Spassky - Weiss, Havana Olympiad 1966
1 e4 d5; 2 ed Nf6; 3 Bb5+ Bd7; 4 Bc4 Bf5; 5 Nc3 Nbd7; 6 d3 Nb6; 7 Qf3 Nxc4; 8 dc Bxc2; 9 Bf4


"From this point I stopped trying to guess my opponent's moves and I probably behaved somewhat tactlessly - I tried to sit at the board for as little time as possible" Boris Spassky


9 ... a6?; 10 Nge2 h6??; 11 0-0 Qc8; 12 Nd4 Bh7; 13 Rfe1 Rb8?; 14 h3 g5??; 15 Bxc7 Qxc7; 16 Qxf6 Rg8; 17 d6 Qd7; 18 Rxe7+ Bxe7; 19 Re1 Bg6; 20 Rxe7+ Kd8 and then Black resigned 1-0

You can find this, and 99 of Spassky's best games, in "Spassky's 100 Best Games" by Bernard Cafferty which has recently been re-released:



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Chess Tales by Roger Coathup: A collection of online articles about chess and chess players.